


The Concert

by playswithworms



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Self-Indulgent, Team as Family, questionable knowledge of music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:42:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21749215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/playswithworms/pseuds/playswithworms
Summary: Once up a time a white-haired Scotsman compared his life to a battlefield, when everyone else had fallen. And this was true. What was also true was her life was a song, and everyone in it was the melody. The Doctor gets through a rough spot with a little help from her friends and a cosmic musical interlude.
Comments: 30
Kudos: 67





	The Concert

**Author's Note:**

> New fandom for me, so pardon any flubs!

"Doc?" Graham said cautiously. The ragged figure on the floor propped up against the console of the TARDIS didn't move, didn't acknowledge him. "Hey, Doc, had us worried you did, didn't know where you'd got to. Sure you should be outa bed like this?" 

The Doctor had a bit more color to her face, but she still looked like death just barely warmed over, dressed in pinstripe pajamas that were a little too big for her. She was frowning slightly as she stared at her knees through the tangle of hair falling over her face. 

"Is there anything..." Graham's voice trailed off. "I could make you a nice cup of tea? You need to have something, Doc, even you can't go on this long." 

She hadn't touched the water or tea or food or anything else they'd brought to her bedside, and he highly doubted she'd had anything during the...well, the three days she'd been tortured. Graham ran a hand over his face and then crouched down next to her, hating the little niggle of fear that kept him from touching her. He just couldn't shake the image of her face when she'd killed him, looked him and Yaz and Ryan in the eyes and shot them with that energy weapon. And she hadn't looked any different when they'd woken up, unharmed, an unknown amount of time later. Ruthless. Unreachable. A tightly leashed storm. Utterly implacable as they'd coughed and shivered and staggered to their feet, just in time to see their captors carted off by some sort of galactic police force. Even after all that, after those aliens had tortured her and tried to turn her into their weapon, she hadn't actually killed them, Graham reminded himself. Layers within layers; she’d been plotting the whole time. He knew there was much more to her than she tended to show them, a sort of battle-forged ruthlessness they’d seen glimpses of when she’d faced down the Dalek, but she was still their friend, still _their_ Doctor. He hoped. And right now she wasn't ok. How could she be? 

"Look, don't worry about the screaming," she'd told them earnestly, hurriedly, before they took her away, the aliens using their lives to ensure her compliance. "Torture isn't very effective on my kind, but better to play along for now. Probably won't be fun to listen to, though, sorry," she’d added, with an apologetic wrinkle of her nose. There hadn't been any screaming, and that had been somehow worse. Whatever they'd tried to do to her had ultimately failed, in the end, but Graham had a sinking feeling it had been a lot more effective than the Doctor had bargained for.

The Doctor had stalked grimly back to the TARDIS, seeming to ignore them completely, although she waited, arms braced against the console, until they were all inside before throwing the levers with the air of someone on the edge of endurance. She'd swallowed a handful of some sort of glowing square tablets that the TARDIS provided and then disappeared down a corridor. They'd found her later, face down on a bed in the pajamas in a strange, dark little room they'd never seen before, sleeping so deeply they'd gotten her stethoscope out of her discarded coat to double check she wasn't dead. She'd woken finally, after a day, or at least her eyes were open. She wouldn't talk, wouldn't respond, didn't seem to see them at all, although she would cringe away from the lightest touch as if it burned. The TARDIS, when they dared to crack open the door, was just floating, somewhere in space, a scattering of bright blue stars and a few more distant clusters and nebulae.

"Look, Doc...I understand if...if you're not too fond of us right now. We shoulda trusted you, shouldn'ta questioned you like that. Sorry about tryin' to hit you with that pole, too, but in our defense, we did think you were about to kill us and go runnin' off, destroying the universe and everything. I mean, you did, kill us that is, except not really, and..." He was starting to babble. Graham took a breath. "What I'm tryin' to say is if you don't want us to travel with you any more I understand, you went through hell 'cause of us, but at least let us help you, let us do something. I just...I hate seein' ya like this." Graham's voice cracked and he fell silent. The Doctor's brow wrinkled harder, frown deepening.

"Graham?" Yaz’s voice echoed a little through the console room.

"Over here," he called, after clearing his throat. "Found her."

Yasmin and Ryan approached, worry on their faces although they too, stepped softly. Cautious. They looked ragged and exhausted, and Graham was pretty sure he didn't look much better. 

"Doctor?" Yaz asked hopefully. "Is she...?"  
  
Graham met her eyes, shaking his head. "Sorry, love. She's out here, but she's still not…." 

"Heya, Doctor," Ryan said as they came closer, with a gentleness that caught at Graham's heart all of the sudden. He sounded so much like Grace. Ryan picked something off the console and crouched next to Graham. "How about a biscuit? Custard creme. Your favorite, yeah? Actually there's about a hundred up here, think the TARDIS is worried about ya."

She didn't move to take it, but after a moment the Doctor's head bowed and she took a deep breath, then let it out in a shuddering sigh, her brow still furrowed with something, anger or pain, it was hard to tell. Graham and Yaz exchanged glances. It was response. More than they'd had so far. Graham dared to put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing softly. To his surprise and sudden flare of hope she reached up, her hand buried in the too-long sleeves of the pajamas, and drew his hand down further, pressing it to her heart. Hearts. 

"Doctor," Yaz said, kneeling on her other side and resting her hand over Graham’s. Her eyes were overbright with an edge of tears, but her voice was calm and steady. Her PC Kahn voice, Graham thought of it. "I know you've been through a lot, but...talk to us. Come back to us. However you can. Please? We'll wait 'till the end of time if we have to, but...” PC Kahn wavered, and it was just Yaz, the tears leaking through to her voice. “I'd really rather not have to." 

Ryan leaned over and added his own hand, warm and long-fingered enough to wrap around them all. The Doctor lifted her head, still frowning hard, but it was a determined, thinking kind of frown this time. As they watched, the Doctor's unfocused gaze zoomed in, eyes narrowed, staring intently at something only she could see, and her lips pressed together hard. She suddenly ducked and pressed her forehead to the tops of their joined hands, and then released them all, springing to her feet and striding determinedly away.

"Doctor?" 

"Whoa, hey Doc, where ya going now?!"

Yaz and Ryan scrambled to their feet, while Graham stood more slowly. 

"Which way did she go?" Ryan spun around in a circle, while Yaz started for one corridor, then changed her mind and peered down another.

"I have no idea," Yaz said unhappily. "Graham?" 

He shook his head, not sure that chasing the Doctor all over her ship was the best way to go. "Look, I can't pretend to guess what's going on in that alien head of hers, but maybe we should give her some space? Seems to be feeling a bit better, anyway, if she can move that fast." Although he wished they'd been able to get her to eat something. Maybe he'd have a try at making some fried-egg sandwiches and leave them in strategic locations, although he wasn't entirely convinced the round things in the TARDIS kitchen were eggs. They seemed a little _too_ round for chicken eggs, at any rate.

Ryan's eyes widened, looking at something behind him, and Graham turned to see the Doctor was back, only now she was holding...a guitar? Graham blinked his eyes several times but the image stayed the same. The Doctor, too pale and eyes dark shadowed, looking like someone sick with a bad flu for a week and out of bed too soon, standing there in the golden glow of the TARDIS with a black and white electric guitar. Bafflement was a familiar emotion when hanging around with the Doctor, but this one took it to a new level. 

"Gonna give us a concert then, Doc?" he said uncertainly. She still seemed a thousand light years away, looking down at an indeterminate point in front of the guitar, breathing hard. Graham could see her hand trembling slightly, hesitating, holding a pick over the strings, and her grip on the neck was white-knuckled. She finally plucked a string, then ran through them all, single notes reverberating loud and true through the TARDIS although the guitar didn't seem to be hooked up to any sort of amp. The Doctor adjusted one of the tuners and then, tongue sticking out slightly in concentration, strummed through a short, screeching, hard-rock-sounding sequence, not Graham's thing, but he was impressed. She definitely knew what she was about.

"What?! No way. _No. Way._ " Ryan had his hands on his head in disbelief. 

Graham chuckled. "Speaking your language, is she, son?" He'd been annoyed by Ryan's guitar playing when he'd first moved in with Grace, although he felt badly about it now. Grace had said it helped with his finger coordination, and it was something he loved. 

They watched as the Doctor continued to play, picking out chords and bits of songs, hesitating at times but she seemed calmer, more present than she had been, as she concentrated on the music, relaxing into an effortless sort of competence that you saw with musicians with years of practice. Not all of it was rock and roll either. Was that...Beethoven, of all things? Sad and wailing, screeching and ferocious, playful and melodious, the bursts of sound continued to fill the TARDIS, volume just short of painfully loud. Graham was starting to change his mind about electric guitar not being his thing, because this was amazing. Ryan was staring at the Doctor like the world's biggest fanboy, and Yaz was looking rather starstruck as well, although the worried twist to her expressive face said she was wondering if the Doctor had possibly gone off the deep end completely, a sentiment Graham shared. 

Their misgivings were justified when, a few stanzas of jazzed up "All You Need Is Love" later, the Doctor's playing suddenly faltered and she flattened her hand over the strings, silencing them with a little squawk of feedback from non-existent speakers. The TARDIS thrummed softly as the sound died away, and the Doctor closed her eyes, swaying a little where she stood. Graham made an abortive movement towards her, worried she was going fall over or pass out, but she turned to lean against one of the crystal columns surrounding the TARDIS console instead, pressing her forehead hard against it. One hand held the guitar close, but the other splayed against the column, almost a caress. The Doctor loved her ship beyond all reason, Graham knew, but he'd never quite been convinced of her claim it was alive. In this moment however he could easily believe the TARDIS loved her back - the presence, the awareness of the ship was almost tangible in the golden light, the soft encouraging burbles of sound. 

The Doctor’s hand clenched tight in a fist against the column, and she made a quiet half sob, half laugh, the first sound they’d heard her make since those blasted aliens had taken her away from them. She pushed away from the column into a frenzy of motion. Yaz stepped hastily out of her way as she barreled towards the TARDIS console, the Doctor shoving the guitar into her hands as she went by. Yaz blinked in her wake and adjusted the guitar awkwardly, looking at Ryan and then Graham, who shrugged. 

The Doctor was adjusting levers, pressing buttons, peering at screens and panels, opening compartments and digging out bits and pieces of spare parts and things with dials and wires and blinking lights until she apparently found what she was looking for. She tossed it into the air with a triumphant little flip and then sat down on the floor abruptly, hunched over the device with her sonic, which she must have had in one of her pajama pockets. Within short order the whatever-it-was (Graham had only gotten a confused impression of a metal tube and some small curved dangly dishes and a lot of squiggly colorful wires) was disassembled into pile of several dozen pieces and the Doctor was screwing some of the bits together in a new configuration. It began to make a high-pitched whining sound, threw sparks, and started a small fire on the sleeve of her pajamas which she absently put out with her other hand without losing a beat. 

Yaz, apparently tired of standing around uncertainly, finally sat down on the floor across from the Doctor with a resigned sigh, cradling the guitar to her chest. After a few moments Ryan joined her, both of them scooting back a few prudent inches as more sparks flew through the air. Who knew how long the Doctor was going to be about this whatever she was up to? Graham eyed the floor as well — they needed some chairs or stools or something in here, seriously — but decided against it for the moment. 

“I’ll go get us some tea,” he announced. “Maybe a fire extinguisher, too, if I can find one. Give a yell if…anything, you know…” Graham gave a vague wave of his hand.

“We’ll keep an eye on her.”

“Sure thing, granddad.” 

When he returned the Doctor was wedging the new whatever-it-was she’d constructed on the end of her sonic by banging it hard against the floor. There were a few more scorched places on the Doctor’s pajamas, but no more sparks, and Yaz was slapping at Ryan’s hand as he stealthily tried to reach for the guitar. The Doctor examined her modified sonic closely for a moment, and then scooted forward on her hands and knees, arm outstretched to aim it at Yaz and the guitar. Yaz made a startled “eep” sound and squinched her eyes shut, holding the guitar in front of her like a shield, lowering it again cautiously when nothing happened. The Doctor slumped, all the frantic energy draining from her. She dropped her arm and stared at the sonic with a despairing, exhausted expression. 

Graham responded without even thinking about it, as he had that other time the Doctor had worn a similar expression, when she thought she’d stranded them all to die on Desolation. She’d probably have worked it all out on her own eventually, he suspected, but a little pep talk never hurt. He set the tray down on the floor and carefully followed it, folding his knees somewhat with a creak and a groan. “Here now Doc, none of that. I have no idea what you’re up to, but don’t you give up just yet. Take a break and have some tea with us, it’ll all work out in the end, you’ll see.” 

He didn’t think she’d even heard him at first, but after a long moment the Doctor pushed herself slowly back on her heels, setting the sonic down, and then she _looked_ at him. Graham couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face as she made actual eye contact, although it near broke his heart. It was wrong for the Doc to look so sad and lost, but he didn’t let his own reaction show. He picked a mug off the tray and held it out to her and she took it with both hands, holding it under her nose and staring down at it for a long moment, steam wafting around her face, her head tipping forward as if she were about to fall asleep. He nudged her a little and she took a sip, then drank it down thirstily in a few long gulps. He wordlessly refilled her cup three more times, and she drank those too. 

“Fancy a sandwich?” Graham asked, hoping she still had some throat lining left. That tea had been hot! 

He hadn’t had time to grab anything other than the tea, but he still had an emergency sandwich in his pocket. Probably a bit stale but edible. Ryan clearly disagreed, giving him a horrified look as he held it out, but the Doctor took it and wolfed it down, picking up her sonic again and staring at it as she chewed, her face scrunching up in thought. 

“First sensible thing I think I’ve seen you do since we met, Doc, good on ya,” Graham said approvingly as she swallowed the last bite.

The Doctor’s eyebrows rose with a sudden thought, and she pulled the new additions off the end of the sonic, removed a little green glowing disk and dropped it into her mostly empty tea mug, swirled it around a few times, rubbed it rapidly up and down on her slightly scorched pajama sleeve for a few seconds, put it all back together and then crawled back towards Yaz and aimed it at the guitar again. Yaz gulped but held steady this time, showing considerable fortitude Graham thought, considering that the _last_ time the Doctor had aimed something at her she’d thought she was going to die, murdered by her friend. The Doctor apparently had the same thought, more awake and aware now than the first time she’d tried it; her arm dropped, face stricken.

“I won’t chicken out if you don’t Doctor,” Yaz said quickly. “Even if I end up growing two heads or whatever that thing does, it’d be worth it. I want to see what you’re going to do next.”

The Doctor stared at her for a moment, then sat back down hard, dropping her head into her hands, sonic smashed up into her hair. Her shoulders shook a few times, laughter or tears or maybe both, because when she lifted her head again there was the slightest quirk of a smile in the corner of her mouth although the rest of her face was twisted in a conglomerate of emotions, pain and sorrow and other nameless things under a tense grip of control. Graham felt his jaw clench in sympathy and trepidation. The Doctor seemed to be doing a little better, but there was a sense about her like a countdown only temporarily halted. Time Lord, those aliens had called her. Oncoming Storm. And many other titles and names. Graham couldn’t remember them all, only that they’d been powerful and frightening. 

The Doctor’s mouth opened as if to say something, but it ended in a long exhaled frustrated-sounding breath. She took another deep breath and rocked back up on her knees, her face smoothing out and something like the old warmth back in her eyes, whatever had been there before pushed deeper as she lifted the sonic again, giving Yaz plenty of time to change her mind. Yaz raised her eyebrows and jiggled the guitar a little. 

“C’mon. Get a shift on.” 

The Doctor pressed something on the modified sonic, and the guitar lit up briefly in a flash of brilliant white light, all the strings twanging at once. Yaz did not, thankfully, grow an extra head, but the loose hair not wrapped in her buns floated around and into her face for a few seconds, causing her to sneeze violently. The Doctor deftly grabbed the guitar before she could bash her head into it, slid the sonic into her pajama pocket, and used her free hand to steady Yaz while she gave her a swift firm kiss on the forehead. She clambered to her feet and headed to the front of the TARDIS while the rest of them were still getting up, Ryan giving a hand up to Yaz and then Graham. 

The Doctor was standing at the doors, motionless, when they caught up with her, and they slowed as she made no move to open them. Something about her stance gave Graham the strange sense she was bracing herself to charge into battle, rather than a jaunt to some new planet for a jam session or something else equally…normal. Normalish. Doc didn’t do normal though, did she. He exchanged glances with Ryan and Yaz and saw that they felt it too. It was likely to be a wild ride, whatever happened. By mutual agreement they linked hands.

“Still sure, Doc.”

“Me too. Sure.”

“I’m sure, Doctor. We’re with you.”

They couldn’t see her face, but she swung the guitar up so it rested casually over her shoulder, like a club, and the doors opened at her touch. It was the same patch of stars that had been there before, as far as Graham could tell, but this time the doors kept folding inward, or the walls of the TARDIS disappeared, until they were standing with a vast swath of space stretched above and around them. Graham liked to think he’d become old hat at breathtaking views of the cosmos over the past several months, but he still had to look down at his feet to make sure they were firmly on the TARDIS floor, and behind him to the reassuring golden glow of the raised central area and console. He was glad for Yaz and Ryan pressed close on either side of him. 

“My thief wants you to know, the safeword is pears.” 

“What the bloody…who the hell are you?” There was a woman’s face in his head, pale skin, a cascade of dark hair pulled up over her head, peering at him intently. By the way Yaz and Ryan recoiled and brushed in front of their faces with their free hands, they were seeing it too.

“Words aren’t working for her right now. They don’t for me either, usually, except when they do - it’s that important to her. Don’t want to burn out your brains, you’re only humans, poor squishy things. Think pears, if it gets to be too much. Got it? Graham, you’re welcome, I hope it’s comfy. Hello! I’m sexy.”

Graham blinked as the apparition was gone as abruptly as it had appeared. 

“Safeword?” Ryan mouthed, eyes wide. 

Yaz tilted her head at him, as if debating whether she needed to explain, and Graham cleared his throat, but then the Doctor swung the guitar off her shoulder and into playing position, outlined in starlight. She plucked a single note and Graham forgot everything he’d been going to say or think or do, as the sound became everything. It reverberated through his soul, not loud, but somehow all engulfing. He could see space warp and ripple as the vibration moved through it. Sound didn’t travel in a vacuum, did it? Except, apparently, when it did. The stars flared brighter, and the Doctor added more notes, joining the first sound which did not fade, exactly, just became part of a growing song. Sweet and wandering at first. Uncomplicated chords, a handful of perfect notes allowed to linger for long stretches of time, powerful in their simplicity. Look. Here. Now. This moment. Playful ripple of melody, childlike wonder, joyful and sad at once. The stars were moving, dancing to the Doctor’s song. Stars didn’t move, Graham knew that one. Not to human eyes, not in human time, but the Doctor wasn’t human, was she, and neither was the TARDIS. 

Graham stopped thinking altogether, overwhelmed by wonder as the stars drifted and gleamed and swam through the soundwaves, timewaves, whatever they were. Red yellow white blue, clustering and parting, sometimes two or three or more meeting in a spinning stately dance. Beautiful was too small a word. Helpless tears streaked his face and he knew if he looked, Ryan and Yaz would be the same, but he couldn’t bear to turn his head and miss a moment. 

The song intensified, slowly, becoming more and more complex, ever changing, unworldly and yet full of emotion that Graham could feel down to his core, although he couldn’t have given any of it a name. The Doctor strummed out a syncopated beat that added itself as well, growing more insistent, increasing tempo of its own accord. Graham tried to hold on to the wonder, but soon couldn’t deny a growing feeling of dread. She shifted her stance, hunched over the guitar, and the Doctor ran fingers up the strings in a slow drawn out wail. Graham saw to his horror that two of the nearer stars were circling madly, colliding, shapes distorting as they reached a point of no return. He wasn’t prepared for the scream of raw pain that came from the guitar next. No. Oh no please no, he thought, as grief crashed through him, thrown back to the moment when the light went out from Grace’s eyes, when he knew there was no fixing it, no way to undo what had happened, that his world was changed forever. 

When Graham focused again the two stars were gone, shockwaves spreading from where they had been, from the Doctor standing on the edge of starlight with her guitar pouring out a torrent of pure pain from its strings. The stars began wobbling from their ordered paths as the waves of music crashed into the path of the explosion, some of them flaring and swelling to immense sizes, others beginning to move into their own death spirals. One was getting pulled apart near the original explosion, a stream of plasma ripping away into a dark well. Black hole. Endings and anguish. Hands outstretched in compassion and hope rebuffed, betrayed. Loss after loss after loss, Graham’s grief over losing Grace multiplied a thousandfold. Mistakes so terrible they devoured entire planets. Choices so impossible they tore open the fabric of space and time. Thousands and millions and billions of lives ended too soon, in sacrifice, in terror, in sheer pointless _waste_. 

A new note joined the tormented song. Protest. Revolt. Building rage. The notes grated, snarling defiance, and then lashed out through spacetime with terrifying, unstoppable wrath. Graham could feel Yaz and Ryan trembling next to him and he held them tighter. He had squeezed his eyes shut at some point, hot tears scalding his face. When he forced them open again the universe was on fire. The Doctor was a dark silhouette against the stars, or what was left of them, as space boiled and howled around her. 

Oh Doc, Graham thought, clinging grimly to sanity. Oh gods. Stop. The aliens had wanted a weapon to destroy the universe and maybe they’d succeeded after all. We have to help her. He couldn’t move though. His knees buckled and he sank to the floor together with Ryan and Yaz, all of them huddled and shivering. Someone was yelling and he though it might be him, only it couldn’t be because he couldn’t breathe. Pears. His jaw was clenched too hard to say it aloud, but he clung to the word like a lifeline as the Doctor’s song screamed agony and rage through his soul. Sweet, gritty. The soft, nearly tasteless canned ones had been one of the few things he could keep down during the worst of the chemo, although he preferred them fresh, now. 

It was quiet. Realization came slowly. He took a deep shuddering inhale. All quiet, except for Yaz and Ryan sobbing harshly against him. Every muscle in his body felt like it was locked tight, still reverberating with the aftermath of the Doctor’s song, but Graham managed to move his arms finally, rub his hand over Ryan’s head, give Yaz a comforting little shake and squeeze. 

“Oh no,” Yaz said hoarsely, squirming upright, wiping her sleeve across her damp face. Her voice echoed oddly. The universe was still burning, a motionless explosion. The Doctor still stood, grief and fury frozen in time, arm lifted to strike another chord. Nothing moved but her hair, shifting slowly, blown by strange currents.   
  
“Oh, my thief.” The dark-haired woman from before stood next to them, watching the Doctor sadly. “She’ll keep going until she burns out if no one stops her. Impossible to care so much and not go mad, you see, when the universe doesn’t care at all.” 

Ryan wobbled to his feet, giving a hand up to Graham and then Yaz. “Who are you?” he asked. “Can you help her?”   
  
“She can’t hear me. I’m too much a part of her.”

“There must be something we can do,” Yaz insisted. The hand that she’d raised to touch the woman’s arm went straight through it, but she turned anyway, staring at them intently. Tears had left tracks down her face as well, and Graham, beginning to realize who this was, wondered how that even worked.

“Impossible to care, impossible for the universe to care. It’s all impossible.”

Graham recoiled as the woman’s face was suddenly right in front of him.

“Do you know how many impossible things will happen since she stole me, and I stole her?”

She continued to watch him expectantly, seemingly waiting for an answer, but it took Graham a moment to find his voice, unsuccessfully trying to parse the oddity of her phrasing. “I don’t…I don’t know?” 

She smiled suddenly, delighted by his answer, with quicksilver joy that reminded him very much of the Doctor. “Me neither!” she shouted, spinning around and then launching herself into his arms. It was like trying to hold an ocean wave. “Find the right word, pretty,” she said softly in his ear, in his mind as she crashed through him blue-green-sunlit-foam. Her kiss seared the edge of his cheek. “She’ll always hear it.” Graham staggered and coughed, surfacing to the raging universe. Yaz and Ryan had his hands again, bracing him on either side. 

A word. What word? He coughed again and shouted into the storm. “Doctor!” He could barely hear himself, but Yaz and Ryan joined him. “Doctor!” They shouted together, and again. “Doctor!” They might as well have been shouting at a black hole that had become the Doctor, source and center of the storm. 

What word would she hear? Impossible to care that much, the TARDIS had said. Alien, madwoman, fallen from from the sky into their lives, to save their lives. Launching herself from the end of crane to snatch hope from the jaws of certain defeat. Building a magic wand out of spoons and spare parts, didn’t remember her own name but…she knew one thing for sure. 

“Help,” Graham whispered.

When people need help, I never refuse.

“Doctor,” he shouted, into the storm. “Help us!” 

What if it’s you that needs help, Doc, what then? 

Ryan and Yaz shouted with him. “Help!” Their joined voices were thin, barely heard, even to themselves, but the Doctor…stopped. The universe still raged around them, the song went on, but she was no longer playing it. She turned slowly to face them and Graham would have taken a step back except he was frozen by the expression on her face. A predatory grin that was all teeth, menacing and gleeful. The hint of what they’d seen when the Doctor had fought the Dalek was there in full force now and it was. Beautiful. Beautiful and terrible. Beautiful and terrible as the sun. The words ran through Graham’s mind. All shall love me and despair. 

If this is how it all ends I suppose that’s all right, he had time to think. A lot more interesting than cancer at any rate. The Doctor met his eyes then and between one blink and the next, went from avenging otherworldly warrior to disheveled, confused, pajama-clad not-exactly-human, holding a glowing guitar that was dripping a cascade of sparks to the floor. The fierce grin faded from her face to be replaced by something much more familiar. To their friend, looking at them in puzzled concern. The song still echoed around them, still tearing at Graham’s heart and mind, but it seemed more bearable now that the Doctor was no longer adding to it. 

From the corner of his eye Graham saw Ryan slowly point up. The Doctor’s eyes widened as she surveyed the chaos above and around them, as if noticing it for the first time. She tilted her head back, shoulders sagging, and blew her hair out of her face in a long sigh. Graham was reassured by how she only seemed very weary and rather exasperated, like someone coming home to find a water pipe had burst and flooded and wasn’t this going to be a proper mess to sort out. Frustrating, but not the end of the world. Not the end of the whole universe, despite appearances. 

She met their eyes again, searching their faces. Trepidatious, Graham thought. Unsure of her reception. Waiting for them to run away screaming, maybe, as if a little thing like creating a universal apocalypse with her guitar was going to scare them away. 

“Oncoming Storm,” Yaz said, not loudly, but her voice carried true, making its own quiet path through the still-raging clamor of the song. Graham saw the words strike the Doctor to the core, and he put a hand on Yaz’s shoulder, appalled, too late to stop her. The Doctor’s brows drew together hard, and her eyes were suddenly bright with tears. She swallowed and looked down, but then lifted her gaze to meet Yaz’s again, vulnerable and utterly crushed, but ready to accept their judgment. 

“Do you know,” Yaz continued, almost conversationally, as if she hadn’t just speared their friend through at least one of her hearts. “I’ve always loved a good storm.” 

Graham’s face must have mirrored the Doctor’s, he was pretty sure. Completely flummoxed. Didn’t see that one coming, Doc, did we?

“They never said, did they, what kind of storm you were,” Ryan added, jumping onboard. “A storm can be anything. Can you choose? What kind of storm?” Graham almost laughed, watching hope break across the Doctor’s face like sunrise. These three. Oh he loved them all. Might as well join into the spirit of things.

“Yeah, and didn’t the lightning help those whatsis, those amino acid things form up to start life on Earth? Who says you can’t be a helpful storm, aye Doc? We always knew ya was a force of nature from the first day we met you, no surprise there.” 

The Doctor dropped her head and rubbed at her forehead, and Graham wondered if he’d stretched the hopeful metaphors a little too far, but when she raised her head again she was beginning to smile, regarding them with delight and wonder, eyes shining. To be sure it was the same way she looked at sixty-seventh century anti-matter drives, or the Kerblam man, but Graham figured they were in good enough company. She looked back up at the chaos above her and rolled her shoulders, bouncing on her feet a little like a prizefighter gearing up to go in the ring, and then gave them a jaunty salute with her free hand. The fierce grin was back, but the way her eyes crinkled at them made it warm, gleeful and exuberant rather than predatory.   
  
She walked backwards still facing them, with a jaunty little swagger. Knowing the Doc she’d probably tell them it was a move she’d learned from Elvis. Or taught him. At the edge of the TARDIS, just before Graham could get worried that she was going to step off into space, she raised her hand and struck a peal of sound from the guitar, bright and pure, releasing a shower of multicolored sparks and cutting through the wail of her previous song like a focused laser beam. She spun around to face the anguished stars again, tossing her hair back, one leg keeping time. Graham found himself yelling in sheer glee, Ryan and Yaz beside him clapping and cheering like a bunch of crazy kids at a concert. 

“Whooo!!”

“Go Doctor!” 

And then they watched their brilliant, scatterbrained, broken friend play joy to the universe. Storm of love, storm of hope, storm of complete and utter nonsense. A storm could be anything. It was the Doctor, their Doctor, expressed in sound and energy - the song bounced from a wild soaring anthem to gleeful cacophony, from complex and intricate to strange and wondrously alien. The pain and anger was still there too, screaming along and around and overhead, but as she played it was entwined, harnessed. Tendrils of blue-green swirled through the burning orange-red firmament, eventually blending everything to murky darkness, like a cloudy night on Earth. 

The Doctor’s main song mellowed, and slowed, and finally stopped, although the universe still hummed and swirled, glowing softly here and there, drab gray-brown with the faintest wash of pinkish iridescence. Ashes and dust. She surveyed the dimness, a shadow against shadows. She wasn’t finished, Graham sensed. The gloom didn’t feel like an ending, it felt…expectant. Listening. The Doctor bowed her head over the guitar and began again, a simple, heartfelt melody, almost a lullaby. Then a new combination, sprightly and free, that had Graham imagining boyhood rambles with his friends, which transitioned to something deeper-toned, stately and kind, tinged with sadness. 

Several of the glowing spaces overhead had been intensifying, and one of them burst into light with a sound like distant thunder, lightning flash illuminating the haze momentarily. The clouds and murk cleared and drew back, leaving a deep clear space around a brilliant silvery blue newborn star. More followed, rumbling and flashing and blinking on like a sky full of a dozen, and then a hundred fireflies of every color, swirling and dancing through multicolored mists. Through it all the Doctor continued to play, segments of song and melody, each one unique yet somehow forming a whole. Like before, each new song joined with the ones before it, blending together, beautiful rather than the cacophony it should have been. Some pieces lasted several minutes, some were brief bursts of harmony and sound. It wasn’t until a particularly tender, passionate segment made him blush down to his toes that Graham realized. That was a lover. The songs were people, people the Doctor had known, people she had loved. The Doctor’s head was slightly turned towards him as she played. He thought he saw a glisten of tears, but she was smiling too, fond and a little wry  
  
They stood there, enthralled, as the Doctor played all of her long life’s companions and the universe lit up around them, too many stars to count. Graham only noticed the ache in his legs when Yaz tugged at his hand, and he stepped back and settled gratefully on to the sofa without looking away from the constantly evolving panorama around them. How old was the Doctor, anyway? How many people had touched her life? So much, so many, as varied as the stars, so beautiful. So beautiful. Graham’s eyes drifted shut for just a moment, so he thought, but when he woke to Ryan’s nudge it felt like he was waking from a substantial sleep, dreaming of ever-changing faces, laughter and running, joy and pain. He blinked and straightened, and hoped he hadn’t been drooling on Ryan’s shoulder. 

The Doctor was still playing, sitting on the edge of the TARDIS with her feet dangling into infinity, the guitar painting the universe now with a song of adventure and wonder. Graham got the impression of someone strong-willed and bouncing and full of life, the song threaded through with aching loss, wistful and longing. The sky was ablaze again, this time with stars of every description, some dancing in pairs or more, or gathered in firework clusters, starlit nebulae, spinning pulsars, they gleamed in every direction with every color imaginable, and some Graham was pretty sure he’d never imagined. Some of the more distant patches of light resolved into focus between the remaining tendrils of cosmic dust, and Graham’s breath caught in wonder, feeling the scale of the universe shift. Galaxies. Those were entire galaxies, elliptical disks and irregular rings and exquisite spirals, more numerous than the nearby stars.  
  
The current theme continued for a long time, through several variations, so vivid Graham could almost picture..her? Small and fiercely alive, fondly chiding, big-eyed, big-hearted. The melody changed a few more times, briefer but heartfelt. A darker song, conflicted, a complex mingling of fear and hope and heartbreak. Sardonic and well-hidden affection, steady and brave, then another younger someone, full of surprises, curiosity and wonder and certainty of self. Another brave, quiet sort, a single chord of tribute, gifted to the stars. The Doctor silenced the strings, watching, and then she stood, slowly, shouldering the weight of memories. When she turned to them her eyes were weary but peaceful; the guitar trailed a faint cloud of smoke or condensation, as if it were weary too. 

They rose to meet her as she approached, and she smiled, but she wasn’t done yet. Graham’s eyes filled with tears at the first few notes. Grace. Warmth and wisdom and a heart bigger than the sun, fearless handfuls of life, so much living in her life. Somehow despite knowing her for less than a day, the Doctor captured the very cadence of her voice, the essence of her soul. Graham felt deep and aching joy as Grace’s song echoed out through the universe. Oh if only you could see this, love, he thought, as he so often did. Next to him Ryan scrubbed at his face and Graham leaned against him, felt Ryan press back.  
  
The Doctor turned to Yaz next, giving them time to regain their composure perhaps. Yaz looked like part of the universe itself, her dark hair shimmering with starlight, her eyes shining bright. The Doctor’s stance was almost courtly, troubadour approaching queen, although Yaz was not managing the part of queen very well, as she shifted awkwardly and looked rather like she wanted to hide behind the sofa for a moment. The Doctor grinned at her though, and Yaz steadied, answered with her own smile that held just a hint of mischief. Bring it on, the lift of her chin said.

The Doctor’s Yaz-song began quietly, deceptively simple, until you listened more closely. Wisdom and kindness and a heart for adventure, of a subtler sort than Grace’s. They scrunched their faces at one another in mutually delighted grins, two of a kind for the moment, despite being Yaz usually being a quieter, sensible sort and the Doctor generally the embodiment of not sitting still and alarming things that maybe occasionally turned out to be sensible in the end. The Doctor paused the guitar dramatically, and then launched into a fierce rendition of the same theme that sounded like it could be the soundtrack to an action movie, although somehow it held true to its quiet, steady core. Yasmin Khan, breaking all the rules, but in a responsible sort of way because she could damn well think for herself. The Doctor spun away from Yaz with a bow and a flourish and laughter on both sides, and then it was Graham’s turn.

Graham braced himself a bit as he was suddenly the full focus of the Doctor’s laser-sharp attention, feeling rather exposed. He understood why Yaz had tried to hide behind the sofa. The Doctor tilted her head, considering, her face serious again but her eyes were deep and warm. “Well then, Doc,” he said, smiling, glad to see her mostly back to herself again instead of that unresponsive blankness from before, or consumed with anguish and rage. She started playing and Graham couldn’t help the wide grin that stretched across his face at the catchy rhythm, the sweeping emotion, the kindness and honest strength that ran through it. Was that really how she saw him? He was nothing special, just…Graham. Stubborn and sometimes cranky and not particularly brave except because of Grace, but right now he felt…kind of cool. Badass even. He laughed in delight as the Doctor even managed to turn the squeal of bus brakes in a fancy little riff and she gave him a cheeky wink.

Ryan straightened as the Doctor turned to him next, and his eyes widened as she held out the guitar to him.

“Oh no, no way. I couldn’t!” He backed away a little, looking both terrified and like he’d never wanted something so much in his entire life.

“Sure you can,” the Doctor said, the first words they’d heard her speak in nearly four days. Yaz reached up and thwopped Ryan lightly on the back of the head, saving Graham the trouble. Ryan’s hands reached slowly for the guitar, hovering for a moment and then grasping it slowly, delicately, like it was fragile as glass. It looked different, Graham noticed then. It had been an ordinary enough black-and-white guitar before, despite the glowing and sparks, but now it was deep-space black with a nebulae-rainbow of iridescent color splashed through the center, like oil on water, or scorched and tempered steel. Ryan hesitated, positioning and repositioning his hands. He slid his fingers along the strings and winced as the guitar gave a soft twangy screech and dripped multicolored sparks.

The Doctor smiled at him, hands in her pajama pockets and rocking on her feet a little. “It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be you,” she said easily. 

Ryan looked up at her. “This. Is proper. Awesome.”

“I know, _right?_ ” The Doctor’s smile dialed up to its full wattage. Ryan grinned back, took a deep breath, and played. It was indeed not perfect, more enthusiasm than skill, especially after the Doctor’s virtuoso playing, but it was all Ryan. It started jagged and loud, like the grime music he loved so much. A bunch of angry boys beating their chests was how Graham tended to think of it, but Ryan’s song didn’t flinch from the harsh realities of life, turned bitterness to endurance and determination, heart of gold making its wild and joyful noise to the universe. Ryan wrapped up his song with a crashing series of chords that transitioned into a complicated riff, ending on a high-pitched squeal that he pulled off quite well, Graham thought proudly. One of the bits Ryan had practiced a lot, he recognized the tune. Graham and Yaz whooped and cheered as Ryan handed the guitar back to the Doctor, grinning madly. 

The Doctor gave Ryan a happy, approving inclination of her head, then turned to face the edge of the TARDIS again, surveying the shifting stars and galaxies overhead. She plucked occasional notes as Ryan’s song met and mingled seamlessly with all the songs that had gone before and then she stilled the strings entirely, just standing and watching as the universe chimed and echoed and danced. 

Graham watched, spellbound, as two particularly beautiful spiral galaxies whirled slowly through and around each other, but a small movement from the Doctor caught his eye just in time to see her sway. He shot up from the sofa but was too late to catch her as her knees buckled and she sat down hard.

“Oof,” she said as he knelt and grasped her by the shoulders. “Knees,” she added grumpily. “So unreliable! Not sure if I’m sold on these knees. Talking though, now that’s more like it! Nothing like talking. And words. Words are fantastic.” She let the guitar slide off of her knees to the floor, shaking one hand as she loosened her grip. 

“Ow. A little out of practice, s’been awhile.”

“Out of practice,” Graham repeated incredulously, steadying her as she listed hard to one side. Yaz and Ryan joined them on the floor, looking at her anxiously. 

“Doctor, are you ok?”

“I’m fine. Never better!” Her smile up at them seemed genuine, if a little wobbly, but her eyes seemed to be having trouble focusing.

“Yeah, right, sure you are,” Yaz said, laughing. She scooted the guitar out of the way so she could carefully pull the Doctor into a hug. After a second Ryan joined her, and then Graham, engulfing her on all sides. 

“Completely daft, you are,” he said into her hair, squeezing her gently. She smelled faintly of space, like new rubber tires with hint of scorched almond.

“Mmm, cuddle,” the Doctor murmured happily. Despite that she seemed a little stiff in their grasp, and Graham wondered if they were hurting her - the bruises and cuts had faded and mostly healed by the first day, and they hadn’t found any other obvious injuries, but who knew what exactly those damn aliens had done to her. She wasn’t drawing away though, and after a moment her arms rose to hug them back. “Hugs from the fam. Brilliant. Best day ever.”

“We were worried about you,” Ryan said. 

“Yeah.” The Doctor sighed and rested her forehead against Ryan’s shoulder. “Sorry about that. Sorry if I worried you. Thought I’d got over being so moody, this time around, but had a bit of a head wonk there for awhile.” 

“I’d say if anyone had good excuse to be little down in the dumps it’s you Doc, after what you went through. We’re just glad you’re feelin’ better, don’t be sorry.” Graham gave her another light squeeze. 

“And that was amazing!” Yaz told her, heartfelt wonder in her voice. The Doctor lifted her head to gaze up at the glorious shifting tapestry galaxy overhead, still resonating softly with echoes of her song. 

“Promised myself not to make such big waves this time around, but so much for that, too, I guess.” 

“Waves. Did you…I mean, what was that?” Graham asked hesitantly, tilting his head skyward to point. “Did you really blow up all those stars and then cause all of this?” 

The Doctor lifted her eyebrows and turned her head to blink at him owlish astonishment. “Graham O’Brien. You think I blew up a bunch of stars with a guitar and you’re still sitting here hugging me?”

“Well, yeah? I mean, I thought you were going to shoot us dead a few days ago, and that turned out all right didn’t it? This looks like it all turned out pretty ok in the end, too.” 

The Doctor let her head fall back onto Ryan’s shoulder with an incredulous short laugh, and her hand clenched the back of Graham’s jacket. “Compressed time,” she said after a moment. “For the record. The TARDIS has taken us through about four billion years of time in less than a day; converted sound waves to time waves. Nothing blew up or formed that wouldn’t have done so anyway. Sort of. Well. It’s complicated. I mean, I guess you’re not wrong, in a way. I might have…nudged things. A bit.” Her words were starting to slur with weariness. “It’s all…you know. Timey wimey.” 

“And the rest of what you played,” Yaz asked, “that was all…people? Your…your family, the ones you said you carry with you?

“Mmhmm. All m’friends. My fam. Very extended fam,” she murmured with a small laugh, her voice sleepy and wandering. “The universe s’been singin’ to me my whole life. ‘Bout time I returned the favor.” 

They were part of her song too, Graham thought. Grace, too. Echoing out through the universe in soundwaves, space-timewaves, however that worked. He blinked his eyes at the sudden prick of tears, humbled and honored. The Doctor slumped against them more heavily, and he tightened his arm to keep her from sliding on to the floor.

“Think you can make it to the sofa, Doc? Would be more comfortable.” 

She drew a long breath and lifted her head again, and stuck one finger up her nose with her eyes still closed. “Ten minutes, three seconds!” she said, sounding pleased. “Plenty of time.” 

Ryan snorted. “C’mon, up you get.” Together they managed to get her to the sofa, which they fell onto in a tangle of limbs. 

“Looks like we’re all taking a nap then?” Yaz squirmed around, trying to roll the Doctor into a more comfortable position although the way the Doctor had glommed onto her arm was making it difficult. She was out like a light, face mushed inelegantly against Yaz’s shoulder. Ryan was the only one not pinned in some way, but he wedged himself comfortably against the far edge of the sofa, letting his legs sprawl in front of him.

“Guess so,” Graham agreed, rearranging the Doctor’s legs so they weren’t digging into his side. He thought he’d slept a little, earlier, but weariness was tugging at him again. He patted the Doctor’s knees fondly, gave one last look up at the slowly spinning, singing, jewel-universe overhead - compressed time, hopefully they wouldn’t run right into the end of the universe, would they? Surely the TARDIS would stop before that happened. His last thought was of the searing kiss, the ocean-wave taste of the TARDIS as she swept through him. Thank you, he thought, for keeping us safe, and he thought she smiled, or maybe he was already dreaming.

…  


Sofa. They were on a sofa. Where the bloody hell had the sofa come from? Graham’s eyes flew open and sat up with a sharp, inhaled breath, the thought ringing through his mind like a fire alarm. Everyone else made various grumbling noises as they were jostled awake, and the Doctor turned her head from Yaz’s shoulder to squint at him through one half-open eye. 

“Problem?” she asked, sounding alert and awake and ready for trouble, despite her sleep-tousled appearance. 

“Um.” Graham felt his heartbeat start to return to normal. “No, not really. Just…”

“Just?” Both eyes were open now, and Graham was starting to feel a little embarrassed, but still. It was weird that he’d been sitting on the thing for hours before and never even thought to question it.

“This sofa.” He patted one of the cushions. “It kind of appeared. Outa nowhere.” 

“A very comfy sofa it is, too,” the Doctor said approvingly, sitting up a little to survey it. Yaz yawned and rubbed her eyes to blink at it as well, looking puzzled. “Almost more comfortable than yours, Graham, and that’s saying something. And purple!” She craned her neck to beam delightedly at the console. “Clever TARDIS! She doesn’t usually move physical objects like this, wonder where she got it. Must have been a special occasion.”

The TARDIS burbled and vlorped softly. Graham remembered wishing for somewhere to sit, and wondered if the TARDIS had heard him. 

“Thank you,” he said out loud towards the console. “It’s a very nice sofa.” The Doctor grinned at him, delighted that he was talking to her ship, and the TARDIS made more soft, happy sounds. The walls had reappeared, he noticed, but the TARDIS doors were still open to space, allowing a smaller, less overwhelming view of the softly chiming, glittering stars, the hazy glow of distant galaxies. The guitar still rested on the floor nearby, gleaming in starlight and the golden glow from the TARDIS. 

“How’re you feeling, Doctor?” Ryan asked. She looked much better, bright-eyed and alert and present, gleeful over the sofa, but Graham thought she was giving off some mixed signals. She was back to holding herself a little stiffly, hands somewhat awkwardly balled into fists in her lap, and there were still shadows under her eyes, despite the nap. 

“Couldn’t be better! Are you lot ok?” Her face creased in sudden concern and she rooted around in her pajama pocket and pulled out her modified sonic, rapidly disassembling whatever contraption she’d added to it when she’d upgraded the guitar. “Wasn’t paying the best attention before,” she muttered, scanning Yaz, then Graham, and then Ryan, scrutinizing the readings closely. “And I drank all the tea! That was rude of me, I’m sorry. Thought I was getting so much better at this, gonna have to go back to note cards again at this rate…” 

“It’s ok, Doc, we can always make more tea.”

“We can always make more tea,” the Doctor repeated, stopping to look at him with eyes wide, like it was some sort of profound wisdom. “Thank you, Graham. Also, what was that earlier about apologizing for questioning me? Always always question me. Especially if it looks like I’m about to become an unstoppable destroying force, entirely reasonable to question in those situations, in my opinion. Nice try with the pole, by the way!” she added enthusiastically, in all apparent sincerity. “Time Lords have a vulnerable spot right here, left shoulder, we’ll have to practice-”

“Doc, Doc,” Graham interrupted her excitable rambling, blessedly familiar as it was. “Seriously, though. You were in pretty bad shape. How much of this is just you putting on a face to make us feel better? Are you sure you’re not still hurt somewhere? We didn't see anything obvious, but…what did they do to you?”

The Doctor went alarmingly still, shoulders drooping, all animation dropping from her face. 

Yaz gave Graham a worried look and deliberately, slowly, took one of the Doctor’s hands in her own. “You don’t have to tell us, if it’s too hard, but…we’re just worried. I don’t like it when you go quiet like this.” 

The Doctor’s face clenched as if in pain or effort, and her hand stirred in Yaz’s as if to pull away, then stilled and gripped her back. “Just…need a moment,” she said, breathing hard, then a few long deep breaths, then lifted her head to meet their eyes again, scrunching up her face apologetically. “Sorry. Feeling much better, Graham, honest. Cross my hearts,” she said earnestly, using her free hand to actually cross each heart. 

“This ok?” Yaz asked her, wiggling their joined hands, brows furrowed in concern. “It seems like it’s hurting you, almost?” 

“Nah, not hurting. Helping, actually, just…touch telepath. They didn’t go after me physically. Well mostly not. That would have been easier. It was mental, psychic attack. Peeled my mind like an egg.” She gave a humorless laugh, teeth barred, and for a moment Graham could see the flicker of the Oncoming Storm in her eyes. Distant lightning. “Normally I just automatically block you out, s’rude to get into people’s heads without permission, but like I said, head wonk, and you lot are giving out all the feels right now. Taking a bit more effort, but I’ve got it now.” 

“You’re telepathic?” Ryan asked, eyes wide.

“Yeah.” The Doctor scrunched her face again. “Sorry, probably shoulda mentioned that sooner. But only skin contact, and like I said, lots of rules. Wouldn’t use it on you, or anyone, unless it was extenuating circumstances, promise.” 

“And they were telepathic, too, those aliens. And they messed with your head,” Graham said, wondering all over again if he trusted her, and deciding almost immediately that yeah, he did. 

The Doctor stilled again, looking down so that her hair fell over the front of her face, shielding her from their gaze. She shook her head. “Just barely. Minimal telepathic ability, really, nothing I couldn’t handle. But they had…they’d taken a child.” She drew a deep breath and continued. “She was just a child of her species, strongest telepath I’ve ever encountered and I couldn’t…it wasn’t her fault, she didn’t…” the Doctor’s voice ground to a halt. 

“How did you escape?” Yaz asked finally. The Doctor sighed and curled into herself, drawing her knees up and resting her head on them, her free arm wrapped around them although she didn’t let go of Yaz’s hand with her other. 

“Gave her the truth?” she said to her knees. “Destroyed the foundations of her existence? She didn’t even know what she was. I couldn’t fight her, but I convinced her to let me find her oldest memories. She’d been taken, stolen from her people, turned into a weapon. I promised I’d take her with me, but…” the Doctor’s voice wavered again, and Graham winced, extrapolating without any difficulty. No wonder she’d been in a bit of a state, between not being able to save a kid and getting telepathically ‘peeled like an egg,’ whatever that entailed. 

The Doctor shook her head without lifting it. “She was very brave,” she added softly. 

“I don’t have words to say how sorry I am, Doc,” Graham carefully rested his hand next to hers where it gripped the fabric of her pajamas, offering but not pressing. “Can you feel it though? Full permission granted.” 

The Doctor’s hand slowly turned, her fingers cool and slightly work-calloused as she wrapped them around his own, gentle at first and then squeezing tightly.

“Me too,” Yaz said, squeezing her hand and resting her forehead against the back of the Doctor’s head. Ryan leaned over as well, putting his hand on the Doctor’s bare foot. 

“You’ve already been in my phone, so it’s not like I have any secrets from ya.” 

The Doctor laugh-sobbed and curled in to herself tighter for a moment, her grip on Graham’s hand approaching painful. “Nnygah!” She uncurled suddenly and released their hands to scrub at her face. “Ok ok ok! You lot. How’m I supposed to sit around sorry for myself with you all thinking at me like that.” She laughed again, her smile watery but sincere enough, even when Graham looked at it closely. “Thank you. Don’t deserve you, not one bit, but thank you.”

The universe chimed and the TARDIS hummed. The Doctor squinted a grin at the stars. “Silly old universe,” she sighed, yawning and snuggling down into the couch, leaning against Yaz’s shoulder again. “Wish you could feel how much you mean to me, too, return the favor,” she murmured. “I could, actually. Probably. But I don’t trust my head to try anything fancy just yet.” 

“That’s ok. We’ve got a pretty good idea, I think,” Yaz told her. 

“Got any questions? I can’t promise I’ll be able to answer everything, but…there’s so much I haven’t told you. Hadn’t really realized until now how much.” 

Graham thought of all of the lives, the friends and family she’d put into her song. How long a life did it take to know so many? “How old are you?” he asked. Not a polite question for a lady, he’d always been taught, but he didn’t think the Doc would mind. She smiled up at him a little wistfully. 

“Hmm. Ten months and eight days?” 

“Right,” he said, laughing, feeling a stab of poignancy at the thought. She’d just been born, hadn’t she, the day they met her, had been someone else before, not that he had quite wrapped his head around it at the time. Not that he really understood it now. “With this face, you said. But how about before that, since you were born. Originally. If you were born?” Goodness, what if her species were…hatched, or something.

“Yes, I was born, though mind you, most of us were loomed. It was considered a bit scandalous at the time.”

“Loomed?” Ryan said, squinching up one side of his face. 

The Doctor nodded, weaving her fingers in and out. “Genetic. Loomy thingies.”

“How old?” Graham tapped her on the shoulder to get her back to the main question, not sure he wanted more details about genetic loomy things just yet.

“Eh…four and half billion, roundabout?” 

“What!?”

“No way, you’re joking, right?”

“Yeah, I’m joking,” the Doctor said, grinning at them unapologetically. “Or am I?” she intoned, raising her eyebrows dramatically. 

“Don’t look a day over a million, Doc,” Graham told her, trying to look sincere. “I’d never have guessed.”

“It’s difficult, y’know. Keeping track. Time traveling.” The Doctor waved an arm vaguely. “Only two thousand. Ish. Translated to Earth years. Not three thousand yet, I’m pretty sure.”

“Two thousand years,” Graham murmured, trying to wrap his head around it. “I should be calling you Gramps.”

The Doctor straightened a little, looking pleased. “Haven’t been called that in a long time! I’d…kind of like that actually. But only you, Graham.” 

“Why can’t we call you Gramps?” Ryan sat back on the sofa, looking a little put out. 

“Cause it’s only funny if he does.” The Doctor nodded her head emphatically. “All right, that was easy enough. What else?”

“What can we do if you’re hurt, or sick or something,” Yaz asked promptly. “I know about the two hearts thing, but I really really didn’t like not knowing what to do for you. Is there a book of basic…Time Lord? biology and first aid, or something?”

The Doctor tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Main thing’s to get me back to the TARDIS, really. Oh, and no aspirin. Martha wrote down some notes once, I could probably dig those up.”

“Who’s Martha?” 

“Aspirin, why no aspirin?” 

Yaz and Ryan spoke at the same time, and the Doctor grinned and told them about her friend Martha Jones, and the guilt and pride she felt about their time together. She told them about what it was to be a Time Lord and being poisoned by aspirin but not so much by radiation (well, except for that one time). They learned more of the friends and companions that they’d heard first in her song - at least some of them - the full count would take their lifetimes, Graham thought, but she told them about her granddaughter Susan and her wife who’d tried to murder her before they were married, and Rose who had reached out at a time when she thought she’d shut everyone out of her hearts forever, and Ace and Clara and Bill and Amy and Rory and more. 

“Could you really have destroyed the universe?” Yaz asked at one point.

“Me? Nah. Me and the TARDIS? Totally.”

“But you’re good though,” Ryan said.

“Am I? I try to be. Not kill people. Be kind. Help when I can. Seems simple enough, right? But what do I do when death is the kindest thing? Or it seems like the right thing, or the only choice. Murder one to save millions. Murder millions to save the whole universe. I’ve gone down that path before, Ryan, and it didn’t end well, but every time I think I’ll just…stop trying to play god…I could’ve killed your dad, Ryan, very nearly did except for you, because I decided I couldn’t let a Dalek kill everyone on the Earth. I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure it out.” 

“Is that how you see it, Doctor?” Ryan asked. “Don’t think my dad would have wanted to live like that, with that squid thing in his head, any more than you’d have wanted to live as a universe-destroying puppet for those aliens.” 

They’d gone on to pinky swear to kill each other in case of any future alien mind takeovers, while Yaz whopped them both about the arms and declared them daft in the head. 

The Doctor told them then about the Time War and The Moment, and Gallifrey, and that even though she’d regenerated, her right hand still ached sometimes from slamming it through some sort of diamond wall for over four billion years. She told them of some of her previous faces, the white-haired Scotsman, Bowties, Sandshoes, the people she’d been, and in most ways still was. They went on madcap tangents, learned of impossible improbable adventures (and after traveling with her for several months Graham didn’t doubt them at all), heartbreak and horrors and wonders all jumbled together. Graham knew he’d never keep it straight, but at the same time it all seemed to make perfect sense. She was the Doctor. He felt like he was starting to understand with his head something he’d known in his heart when he’d made the decision to travel with the Doctor in the first place. 

“Anyone hungry?” Graham asked, finally, hating to interrupt, but his stomach had been prodding him for several minutes now and his head was reeling with everything he’d seen and heard over the last several hours. He was ready for something simple and non-momentous for a bit. “I could go make some fried-egg sandwiches or as close as I can get with the supplies on hand.”

The Doctor started to smile but then got a horrified look on her face. “Oh no. Oh no this is bad.” Everyone looked at her in alarm as she grabbed Graham by the shoulders, eyes wide. “Graham. WHAT DID I EAT?” 

He squinted at her in confusion. “What? Do you mean the sandwich?”

She collapsed dramatically back onto the sofa, between Ryan and Yaz, who were still caught halfway between alarm and relieved exasperation as they realized this wasn’t another impending life or death crisis. “I didn’t hallucinate it then.” She shuddered. “Could be worse. Could’ve been pears.” 

“It was a perfectly good sandwich I’ll have you know,” Graham said in an offended tone that only partially for show. Seriously, what was wrong with his sandwiches? “Seeing as how you’ve had a rough time of it, though, I’ll make you whatever you want, within my abilities,” he said graciously.

The Doctor tilted her head back at him. “Fried-egg sandwich would be lovely Graham, thank you. Oh, and some custard cremes.” 

“Two for me,” Ryan put in his order. “And I’ll take some custard cremes too.”

“One’s fine for me, thank you, Graham,” said Yaz. “And some custard cremes.”

“Ok, so that’s four fried-egg sandwiches and a bucket load of custard cremes. Got it.” 

“I’ll help!” The Doctor sprang up and over the couch, barreling off towards the kitchen, leaving the humans behind.

“Back to normal then?” Ryan said doubtfully.

Graham jumped as the Doctor reappeared, grabbing his arm and speaking right next to his ear. “Oooh, I’ve got an idea, fam! Picnic! Shores of the Parklejammer seas, in the WooVoo system.” She let go of Graham and leaned forward to thump Ryan’s shoulder a few times. “We’ll bring the guitar, it’s got great acoustics there, without the universe warping side effects!” She beamed around at them all cheerfully, and then bounded away again.

“WooVoo system,” Yaz said, wrinkling her nose, a bit skeptical, then shrugged. “Travel hopefully I guess.”

“It’s good to have her back,” Ryan said, soft and heartfelt, and they all nodded, then winced at loud crash from the general vicinity of the TARDIS console. 

“I’ve got it! No need to panic!” the Doctor yelled.

“The universe will surprise you,” Graham said wryly. The Doctor's song had gradually faded while they'd been talking, but there was a ripple of distant sound from the still-open door, as if the universe had heard, and was agreeing. Or laughing at him. Yaz and Ryan got up from the sofa and they all went together to see where their next adventure would take them. 

**Author's Note:**

> Started this last spring, but got sidetracked by rl, figured I'd better dust it off and finish before Season 12. Got this fic inspiration from listening to a couple of songs (links below), which made me think of Thirteen pulling out Twelve's guitar and jamming around, and it just kept...expanding...
> 
> Vashta Nerada [Doctor Who Theme] by Traffic Experiment - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRm8qmM-DTg  
> Galaxyar - https://mikestatsmusic.bandcamp.com/track/galaxyar
> 
> Thirteen's guitar: http://scarycreative.com/7955/wp-content/uploads/photo-gallery/01_Asphalt_Rainbow_Image_Wrap.jpg


End file.
